Three Against the Witch World

IX

“FLANNAN!” I WHISPERED, unable to believe that my eyes were not bedazzled by some sorcery.

The creature might not be the ethereal thing legend has reported in tales, but it was not a bird and it did have characteristics which were akin—outwardly—to the human.

The feet were still clawed and red, yet they were not the stick-proportions of a true bird; the body had taken on a humanoid shape with arms showing beneath the half spread wings, and tiny hands at the end of those arms. The neck might still be long and supple, but the head it supported, though centered by a jutting beak, held a recognizable face. The white shimmering feathers clothed it, save for feet, arms and hands.

It was blinking rapidly and those tiny hands lifted in a gesture toward Kaththea as if warding off some blow it feared.

Flannan, the air-borne race . . . My memory presented gleanings from half a hundred old stories, and I thought fleetingly that perhaps it was well for us now that we had all had a liking in childhood for listening to old legends. The Flannan were friendly to man after a somewhat skittish fashion, for they quickly lost interest in any project, had small powers of concentration, and were very apt to leave any undertaking far from finished. The heroes and heroines of many stories had come to grief by depending upon a Flannan past its desire to render aid. However, never had it made any alliance with dark forces.

Kaththea began a crooning sing-song, close to a bird’s trill. The Flannan sidled a little closer, its long neck twisting. Then its beak opened and it trilled back. My sister frowned, was silent a moment before she replied—to be interrupted by a trill in higher note. A pause, then it sang longer, and this time I was sure that sound held the rasp of impatience.

“It responds,” Kaththea told us, “to the invocation of shared power, but I cannot read its answer. And I do not believe that it practices shape changing of its own accord.”

“Sent to spy on us?” Kemoc wondered.

“Perhaps.”

“Then it could guide us to the one who sent it!” I was still thinking of the rider.

Kaththea laughed. “Only if it wishes, unless you can grow wings and take to the air in its wake.”

She brought out her packet of herbs and picked free Illbane. On the palm of her hand she held it towards the Flannan. The creature looked from the withered herb to Kaththea, plainly in question. A little of my sister’s frown lightened.

“At least legend holds true so far. This is not the messenger of any ill force. So—” Once again she broke into song, this time slowly, with space between notes.

The Flannan cocked its head in a bird-like pose. When it trilled in reply, its answer, too, was slower, so that I was able to detect individual notes. Once or twice Kaththea nodded as if she had caught one she could translate.

“It was sent to watch us. This is a land where evil interlocks with good, and the pools of evil may overflow from time to time. Its message is for us to retreat, to return whence we came.”

“Who sent it?” My demand was blunt.

Kaththea trilled. The Flannan’s long neck curved, it looked to me, and I could read nothing, not even interest, in that regard. It made no answer. Kaththea repeated her query, this time sharply. When it remained silent, she traced a symbol by fingertip in the air between them.

The reaction to this was startling. There was a squawk, and the half-human aspect of the Flannan vanished. We saw a bird once more. It spread wings and took off flying three times counterclockwise about the islet, while each time it passed us it shrieked. My sister’s eyes were ablaze and her hands moved in a series of sharp gestures as she chanted some words in the seer tongue. The bird faltered and squawked again, then flew straight as a dart’s flight north.

“So—well, that will not work!” Kaththea broke out. “I may not be a sworn witch, but I have more Power than a thrice-circle set by such as that can confine!”

“What was it trying to do?” I asked.

“A piece of very elementary magic.” My sister made a sound close to a snort of contempt. “It was laying a thrice-circle to keep us pinned on this spot. If that is the best the one who sent it can do, then we can beat it on all points.”

“When it went north, could it have been returning to the one who sent it?” Kemoc put my own question aloud.

“I think so. It is the nature of the Flannan not to be able to hold any purpose long in mind. And the fact that I defeated it could send it back to the source in panic.”

“Then north lies what what we seek.”

“Northward went the rider also,” I added.

“And north would take us once more past the web, and the silent keep, and perhaps other pitfalls. There must come a time when we have clear sight. . .” There was an odd note of hesitation in her voice, drawing our attention to her.

Kaththea stared down at her hands, as I had seen her sit before, cupping in their apparent emptiness something in which she could read the future, and it would seem that was not a bright one.

“To be only half of a thing is never easy,” she continued. “This we have always known. I did not take the oath and I have never worn the Jewel of the sisterhood. Yet, save for those two things, I am a witch. There is one other step I did not take, which was forbidden to one not sworn and bound by seer oaths. Yet now this might serve, even save us.”

“No!” Kemoc knew, though I did not, what she hinted. His hands went to cup her chin, bringing up her head so that he might look straight into her eyes. “No!” he repeated, with such force that his cry might have been a battle shout.

“So we continue to walk into hidden peril, when by so much we may be able to guard, and guide?” she asked.

“And you would do this thing, knowing all the danger which lies in it? We have no time for rank folly either, Kaththea. Think—how many even of the sisterhood have taken this grave step? And when it is done they must have the aid of the Power to the highest degree. And—”

“And, and, and!” she interrupted him. “Do not believe all you have heard, Kemoc. It is the nature of any organization of Wise Ones that they make mysteries to awe those who have not their gifts. Yes, it is true that few Witches now have this aid, but in Estcarp there was little reason for it. What need had they to explore? They knew their country intimately, both as it was and as it had been for countless years. They have not ventured for centuries into territory so strange they must have a delegate. It was our father and mother, not the Witches, who went up against the Kolder. And in their time the Kolder sealed off Gorm. But here is no alien force, only that which we know in part. Though it may be warped or changed in some particulars. Thus no better aid could we summon—”

“What does she mean?” I appealed to Kemoc.

“A Familiar’s birth,” he replied. His face was as set as it had been on that ride to bring Kaththea forth from the Place.

“A Familiar?” I did not yet know what he meant. What was a Familiar?

Kaththea raised her hands and took Kemoc’s wrists so that she could set aside his grasp on her chin. She did not look at me when she answered, but at him as if she would impose her will so that he could not deny her desire.

“I must make a servant, Kyllan. One which will explore not this country as we see it, walk it, sense it, but who can return to the past and witness what chanced here and what can be done in the present for our preservation.”

“And how must she do this?” Kemoc burst out hotly. “As a woman gives birth to a child, so must she in a measure create a being, though this will be born of her mind and spirit, not her flesh! It can be a deadly thing!”

“All birth lays a risk on someone,” Kaththea’s quiet tone was in such contrast to his anger that it carried more emphasis. “And—if you are both willing—I shall have more than myself to call upon. Never before in Estcarp have there been three like us—is that not so? We can be one after a fashion when there is need. What if we now unite so and will with me—will not the risk be so much the lessened? I would not try this alone, that I swear to you in all truth. Only if you will consent freely and willingly to my aid will this be my path.”

“And you think that there is a true need for such an act?” I asked.

“It is a choice between walking into a pit as blindly as I crossed the mountains, or going clear-eyed. The seeds of all perils which lurk here were sown in the past, and time has both nourished and mutated them. But should we dig up those seeds and understand the reason for their sowing, then we can also take guard against the fruit they have borne through the years.”

“I will not!” Kemoc was vehement.

“Kemoc . . .” She had not loosed her hold on his hands, and now she spread out the scarred and stiff-fingered one, smoothing its ridged flesh. “Did you say ‘I will not’ when you went into the fight wherein you got this?”

“But that was far different! I was a man, a warrior—it was my strength against that of those I faced—”

“Why count me as less than yourself?” she countered. “Perhaps my battles may not be fought with dart gun and sword blade, but I have been under as severe a discipline these six years as any warrior could ever know. And I have in that time been set against such enemies as perhaps you cannot even conceive. Nor am I saying now in false confidence that I can do this thing alone—I know that is not the truth. I am bidding you to a fight, to stand with me, which is an easier thing than willing you to stand aside and do nothing while watching another take risks.”

His set lips did not relax, but he did not protest again, and I knew that she had won. Perhaps I had not fought on his side because I did not know the danger into which she would venture, but my ignorance was also trust in her. At moments such as these she was no young girl: instead she put on such a robe of authority that the matter of years did not mean much and she was our elder.

“When?” Kemoc surrendered with that word.

“What better time than here and now? Though first we must eat and drink. Strength of body means backing for strength of mind and will.”

“The drinking is easy, but the eating . . .” Kemoc looked a little brighter, as if he had discovered in this mundane need an argument for abandoning the whole project.

“Kyllan will provide.” Again she did not look at me. But I knew what must be done. And this I had never tried before, save when I had approached it with the Torgians.

When one has even a small share of talent or reflection of the Power, one also knows that there are bounds set upon its use. And to willfully break one such for one’s own benefit exacts a price in return. Never since the time I had first learned I could control the minds of beasts had I ever used that to facilitate hunting. I had not sent the Torgians away into peril when I had dispatched them from our camp. Several times I had deterred wild things from attacking or trailing men. But to summon a creature to death for my profit. I sensed, was one of the forbidden things.

But now that was just what I must do, for the good Kaththea would accomplish. Silently I took upon myself the full responsibility for my act, lest the backlash of this perversion of the Power fall upon my sister’s sorcery. Then I set myself, intently, to seek and draw the food we must have.

Fish and reptiles, as I had long ago learned, had minds so apart from human kind that they could not be compelled to action—though, in the case of some reptiles, a withdrawing could be urged. But a mammal could be so brought to us. Prong-horns could swim . . . Mentally I built up as vivid a picture of a prong-horn as memory and imagination combined could create. Holding such a picture then, I cast out my thin line, seeking contact. Never before I tried to do this thing, for I had dealt with beasts directly under eye, or knew, from other evidence, were nearby. This seeking for no particular animal, but only one of a species, might fall.

But it did not. My spinning thought made contact—and instantly I impressed will, needing to move swiftly to control the animal. Moments later a young prong-horn leaped down the river bank in full sight. I brought it out into the flood at the same angle we had used so that the current would bear it to the islet.

“No!” I forbade Kemoc’s use of his gun. The kill was my responsibility in all ways; none of the guilt must go to another. I awaited the animal I had forced to swim to its death, and all I could offer it was a quick, clean end.

Kaththea watched me closely as I dragged up the body. Out of my troubled mind I asked her:

“Will this in any way lessen the Power?”

She shook her head, but there was a shadow in her eyes. “We need only strength of body, Kyllan. But yet. . . you have taken upon yourself a burden. And how great will be your payment, I cannot reckon.”

A lessening of my talent, I thought, and put it to mind that I must not trust that in any crisis until I was sure of the extent of my loss. Nor did I take into consideration that this was not Estcarp, that those rules which conditioned witchery in that land might not hold here where the Power had been set adrift into other ways.

We made a fire of drift and ate, forcing ourselves past the first satisfying of hunger, as flames must consume fuel for some necessary degree of heat.

“It is near to night.” Kemoc thrust a stick which had spitted meat into the heart of the fire. “Should this not wait upon daybreak? Ours is a force fed by light. Such summoning at the wrong time might bring instead a Power of the dark.”

“This is a thing which, begun at sunset, is well begun. If a Familiar be sent forth by the mid-hour of the night, it may rove the farther. Not always are light and dark so opposed, one to the other,” Kaththea returned. “Now listen well, for once I have begun this I cannot tell you aught, or explain. We shall clasp hands, and you must join minds as well. Pay no heed to anything my body may do, save do not loose our hand clasp. Above all, no matter what may come, stay with me!”

We needed to make no promises as to that. I feared now for her, as Kemoc did. She was very young, for all her seeress training. And, though she seemed very sure of her powers, yet she might also have the overconfidence of the warrior who has not yet been tried in his first ambush.

The clouds which had overhung the day lifted at sunset, and my sister drew us around to face those brilliant flags in the sky, so that we could also see the mountains over which we had come into this haunted land. We joined hands and then minds.

For me it was like that time when our mother had so drawn upon the three of us in her search for our father. There was first the loss of identity, with the knowledge that I must not fight that loss though it went against every instinct of self-preservation. After that—a kind of flowing back and forth, in and out . . . a weaving . . . of what?

I do not know how long that period lasted, but I emerged suddenly, my hand jerking wildly. Kaththea was gasping, moaning, her body moved now and again in convulsive shudders. I caught at her shoulder with my free hand, trying to steady her. Then I heard a cry from Kemoc as he came to my aid.

She gave small, sharp ejaculations of pain. And at intervals she writhed so that we could hardly keep the hold we had promised her we would not break. To make it more difficult, I was tired and drained of strength, so that I had to forced myself to every movement.

Her eyes were shut. I thought that she must be elsewhere, her body remaining to fight against what she willed it to do. In the light of the now dying fire her face was not only pale, but faintly luminescent, so that we missed no outward sign of her torment.

The end came with a last sharp outcry and arching of her body. From her sprang a dart of—was it flame? Perhaps the size of my hand, it stood upright, sharply brilliant. Then it swayed a little, as might a candle flame in a breeze. Kaththea shuddered again and opened her eyes to look upon what she had brought forth. The flame shape changed, put forth small pinions of light, and became a slender wand between those wings. Kaththea sighed and then said weakly:

“It is not like—”

“Evil?” Kemoc demanded sharply.

“No. But the form is different. That which is here has had a hand in its making. Form does not matter, though. Now—”

With our arms about her in support, she leaned forward to address the winged wand as she had spoken to the Flannan. In our minds we read the meaning of those unknown words. She was repeating ancient formulae, putting this child, or more-than-child, of hers under obedience, setting it to the task it must do.

Back and forth it swayed as she spoke. Her words might have been wind bending it to and fro. Then she finished and it stood still and upright. Her last command came dart-swift:

“Go!”

It was gone and we sat in the dark. Kaththea withdrew her hands from ours and pressed them down upon her body as if striving to soothe an ache.

I threw wood on the fire. As the flames climbed, her face showed in their light sunken, old, with a cast of suffering I had seen on men sore wounded. Kemoc cried out and drew her to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder, and his cheeks were wet with more than the sweat called forth by our efforts to feed her energy.

She raised her hand slowly and touched his face. “It is over and we have wrought together very well, my brothers! Our child searches time and space, being bound by neither, and what it learns will serve us well. I do not guess this; I know it. Now, let us sleep . . .”

Kaththea slept, and Kemoc also. But though I was weary yet still there was a restlessness within me. Fear for Kaththea, no—her travail was over, and anything which could have been perilous for her must already have struck during that struggle. Wariness of attack now? I thought not: we were on safe ground for this night. My own guilt? Perhaps.

But for that I would not disturb the others. In due time I would pay for what I had done; for the present it would be best to put it out of mind.

I settled down on my blanket, shut my eyes, and strove to invite sleep. Then I started up on one elbow, awake—to listen to a long familiar sound through the night. Not too far away a horse had neighed!